


The Smart One

by IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237



Series: Grace Sarah Barnes-Rogers [14]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestication, Family Fluff, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Tony Feels, Tony babysits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 12:00:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11417520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237/pseuds/IWannaDoBadThingsWithYou237
Summary: After the disaster with Grace and that whole very unpleasant business, Tony wasn’t sure if he would get to babysit Barnes and Steve’s second daughter-incidentally this is fine with him-until Steve turns up one day covered in paint with a small dripping child to tell him that he needs a favour.Somewhere, Tony knows Bucky-the fiend-is sniggering.Set before The Desperate Kingdom of Love.





	The Smart One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, so this is just a pick me up before i go away. 
> 
> I have maybe two one shots in mind so once there done i might close this series. Any prompts please send them in if you want them written. 
> 
> This does contain some thoughts around Infinity War rather than kill any characters i like and knowing that at least someone has to be killed in a film this big i killed of Laura. I know she's in a couple of other one shots but these are all stand alone rather than in order. 
> 
> After Civil War i kinda fell out of love with Tony but who can fall out of love with RDJ for long? 
> 
> Spelling and Grammar not my strong suit so please keep that in mind 
> 
> Enjoy.

Let’s just get one thing straight. Tony Stark has nothing against kids. Peter, Harley, Riley, Cassie, Thor’s son, Miles, Danielle Cage-Jones, the Murdoch twins, the three Barton’s and Grace Barnes-Rogers. He likes them. Well...he likes spending money on them. Tony knows he can be a bit of an idiot. Thanos, Thad Ross and that whole unpleasant business of the accords have told him that. He doesn’t forget Wanda in the straight-jacket. The way Clint spat at him or the way that Thad Ross refused to let them do anything when Thanos destroyed half of the western world.

So his apology gift is spending money on the kids that were the most affected. He doesn’t forget Cooper Barton’s look of distain when he found them cowering in Clint’s safe room three days after Laura Barton was killed accidentally in the war for the Infinity Stones. He doesn’t forget the look on Natasha’s face when Lila Barton called her a traitor when she fought against her father.

If he pays for the two of them to go to an Ivy League college, if he pays off Scott’s child support so that he can see Cassie, if he makes an indestructible jacket for Dani Cage-Jones an indestructible girl and allows the Murdoch twins to run amok in his swimming pool splashing around while their father’s drink Tony’s entire supply of vodka and Karen Page eyes T’Challa with a curious look on her face whenever she sees him, then t’s worth it. At least to him that matters.

But there has always been something to do that keeps him away from...well...the small children that like to pick things up and drop them or are always dripping with some sort of goo or whatnot.

No. Tony does not have the patience to deal with them, despite Rhodey’s unfounded and baseless claims that he is still a child at heart thank you very much. instead he goes to his lab and he works on things such as new armour for Luke Cage and Jessica Jones because both of them seem to rip theirs to shreds on a daily bases, how he doesn’t know and he wants to finish the perfecting the scope on Clint’s new bow because he’s gone and given the old one to his daughter though Tony understands she favours the crossbow rather than whatever Clint uses.

However the Barnes-Rogers girls are different. Perhaps it’s because they share a tower, or perhaps it’s because he and Steve while getting on are not as close as they used to be and he and Bucky can only be in the room with the other unless either the press, Pepper of the kids are in the same room.

It was his Mom...and as far as Bucky is concerned it was almost Steve after all.

And after that debacle when Grace was a kid he’s not been called to babysit little Meredith Barnes-Rogers know at the age of three. Therefore when the door to the lab opens and Steve Rogers looking deliriously crumpled with sleep and carrying a three year old (And really? Did the fucker really have to look _that_ good carrying a child? Honestly having both abs and an ass that tight should be a punishable offense) Tony thinks this might be the start of an insomnia attack and that during his college years he might have had wet dreams that started out like this (well minus the kids).

“Hi” Steve says dropping the bag containing stuff and then dumping his daughter on the couch. She’s dressed in jeans and a jumper and her little legs stick out adorably. Unlike Grace who was all smiles and blonde hair and so irrevocably Steve’s daughter, Meredith on the other hand was clearly Barnes’s kid through and through with her dark hair in two French plaits and her expression. It’s really not fair that a three year old could look at him with so much calculated judgement.

Or maybe Tony’s finally losing his mind?

Who knew? Who cared?

“I need a favour” Steve says without even waiting for Tony to reply. “I need you to watch Meredith for an hour, maybe two. And before you or Bucky start I tried, I really tried to ask someone else but everyone has kids, or is busy and Grace is at school both with her dance class and then Happy generally takes her for a milkshake because it’s an easy way for him to get one and he can pretend that we don’t know...” he looks to his daughter and Tony realises that he looks desperate. It’s, odd on Steve he thinks, desperation. The last time he looked like that it was after the war when Bucky had got hurt and Steve had tried to keep the blood in his husband rather than the floor.

“Meredith earmuffs” he says and his daughter immediately sticks her hands over her ears. Fuck, Tony thinks that’s cute. Little devil child.

“Tony” Steve says turning back to him and Tony realises with shock and something that feels a little bit like awe, that this is Steve Rogers looking crazy and deranged and...Dare Tony even think it? In need of a good _pounding_?

“Tony” he rakes a hand through his hair and Tony forces himself not to swoon. Damn his father for creating this masterpiece that makes him struggle with his sexuality in a way that not even college, vodka on tap and that strange drug Rhodey’s college rebound found under her bed didn’t give him.

“I am raising two kids, two wonderful kids but I am exhausted. And not the sleep kind, oh no I’m falling into bed most nights fast asleep but Bucky has been on a mission undercover for three weeks now and he’s coming home this afternoon, and I haven’t had sex in nearly three weeks.”  Tony chokes because a part of him still struggles to connect Captain America with sex.

“I haven’t had sex in three weeks so can you please watch my daughter so I can go and drag my husband off the Quinjet, throw him down on our bed and lick every inch of him, so please Tony for all the love and compassion in the world can you do that for me?”

There is a second, or Tony thinks it might be a second. It could in fact be several days before he finally regains the powers of both speech and cognitive thought. In fact he thinks his knees might be a little weak. Because there is no fucking way that Captain America has just asked him to babysit his daughter so he can go and lick his husband the Winter Soldier.

Tony blinks again and then swallows and then he shudders and then he tries...oh how he tries to force that image from his mind. Instead he nods because really? What’s a man to do when asked that question?

Steve beams at him presses a kiss on the top of his daughter’s head who lowers her hands and watches Tony with those dark eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

“Ok” Tony says more to himself as Steve practically skips from the door. Meredith watches him and Tony thinks of what to do with a kid. He had given her sister a little toy and she had electrocuted herself and Barnes had looked at him like he was scum on the bottom of his shoe for a week which was more upsetting Tony realised than he thought it would be.

“So I suppose...err...do you wanna...” Crap. He needs something to do to keep a three year old happy least Barnes with his superpower finds out Tony has made his daughter cry and comes after him in the dead of night with the arm that Tony built him as a let’s sweep it all under the rug and appreciate Steve’s pretty, pretty backside, kinda gesture.

Abandoning the bow-because he wouldn’t let Cooper Barton near this never mind a three year old he decides to turn to the mountain of paperwork that Pepper has sent including a dreaded three hundred page memo on the latest opinion polls stemming from the Avengers technically overthrowing a worldwide agreement and becoming friends with a load of vigilantes from New York who all have day jobs and privacy.

“Hey Meredith” he says offering her the box. “You wanna help me set this out?”

Meredith eyes him for a second and then nods scooting of the chair and pulling out all the papers so they spill on the floor. Deciding that FRIDAY has the room secure Tony goes in search of a very strong coffee and a chocolate chip muffin Barnes made seeing as even he will admit it’s technically immoral to drink in front of a three year old in an electrical workshop surrounded by weapons.

When he returns he’s almost surprised.

Meredith has taken the pages of the three hundred page memo from hell and separated them, she’s then mixed them up so that their in order of the block of texts. A truly horrible page that has barley any paragraphs in it was at the end of the chain and then it followed, all the way across his workshop like a giant snake and then it got to the end which was nearing the contents.

“Whatcha doing Meredith?”

Meredith turned to look at him then her face so very serious. It would have been endearing if it wasn’t so very much like the looks that Pepper would give him when he did something stupid.

“I’m laying out all the paper for you” she said as if Tony was stupid.

“So when Auntie Pepper asks you, you can say it was me that messed it all up” she bobbed her head up and down.

Tony blinked.

“Why?” he asked feeling like he was about to step in quicksand.

“So you can come to dinner tomorrow” Meredith said as if it was simple.

Tony blinked again and then felt a strange warmth spreading through his chest. And oh God was that water in his eyes? No he wasn’t crying, the robots were.

“You see Auntie Pepper told Uncle Happy that she was locking you down in a room until you read this thing I overhear you see and me and Gracie we wanted you to come to dinner, because Gracie wants a pony but I would like a build-a-bear and we all want life to go back to normal”

Tony blinked feeling so oddly warm and emotional that when the girl looked down again at the paper he took a moment to compose himself. Damn Steve and Barnes for creating such cute kids. Damn them.

“Well I don’t know about ponies” he said once he had his voice under control. Both Cassie and Maddie Murdoch had tried that trick on him, and who could forget Dani Cage-Jones asking him for a pet dolphin. He knew when he had to stop buying gifts when he actually did buy Danielle a chance to swim with the dolphins and Jessica Jones threatened to castrate him while Luke Cage looked up the hotel suite room he had given them.

“But I think we can do at least two build-a-bears, any maybe some of that sparkly lip gloss thing that Gracie likes”

FRIDAY would have that on record. The kids were always programing things in.

“You mean that?” Meredith asked him titling her head to the side.

“Yeah, and...And to hell...I mean heck with it. Let’s go get some pizza, you need me to get a coat?”

“No, I have that right here” Meredith said patting the blue bundle next to her. Tony nodded hoisting the little girl to her feet. Meredith walked with him to the elevator and then Tony realised something.

“You’re really smart you know that? Couple of years I could have you working in head office”

Meredith turned to him then and the resemblance to Bucky Barnes had never been more prominent then as it was now.

“I know” she said turning and then he saw the smile on her face. The same smile Barnes got whenever Steve wore those jeans that made everyone-even T’Challa feel flustered around the edges.

He turned as the elevator started going down and then decided that he didn’t want to comment on that smug little smile the smartest and most devious girl in the world had ever flashed him (and that was saying something).

If Tony was right he had just been conned by a kid a few days away from her fourth birthday.

Rhodey would laugh forever and Barnes...

Well Barnes would just be unbearable.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is adored.


End file.
